Sandals With Suit Pants? No Problem: Malcolm Todd's One-Rule Style Philosophy

Malcolm Todd's approach to picking out clothes sounds like laziness at first, but it's actually rooted in confidence: "If everything in your closet looks good, you can just close your eyes and get dressed." He said this to Hypebeast with an easygoing tone, but behind it is a styling instinct he's built up over the years — no calculations, no formulas, just the underlying premise that everything you own already looks good.

His "not-so-hot hot take" is this: suit pants with sandals. "I'll wear sandals to a bar just to let my toes breathe — so what if they're out?" That same casualness extends to his accessories, too. He believes a necklace or a pair of statement glasses can shift the whole mood of an outfit — "a little randomness keeps things fresh." He admits his style is a mix of two things: on one hand, classic staples like loose shirts, thick-framed glasses, and well-fitted denim; on the other, spontaneous moments like the colorful hair clips paired with a gray wife beater in the "Roommates" music video, or showing up on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in just underwear, dark denim, and flip-flops.

That logic — if everything in the closet already looks good, anything works — also explains why he became the face of Gap's latest music video, "Denim on Your Own," co-starring Inde Navarrette from Obsession. In it, he reinterprets Robyn's classic dance track "Dancing On My Own." Gap didn't ask him to copy the original — they simply told him to make it his own. He describes it as an exercise in "stepping outside your comfort zone": "Making music should always be fearless, and this time, that fearlessness was something Gap gave me."

On set was his frequent collaborator, director Tanu Muiño, alongside additional creative direction from Calvin Leung, Alastair McKimm, and Bjorn Loos. Todd said that even with the scale of the production, it still felt like "just going to work somewhere else" — everyone joking around, trying things out together. He describes himself as "a musician before a model," and while dancing on camera doesn't come naturally to him, the team helped him find a kind of ease that felt almost professional.

Talking about Gap as a brand, he kept coming back to two words: "iconic" and "timeless." He remembers going back-to-school shopping with his mom at the mall as a kid, seeing that massive poster with those three letters printed across it — "it's just baked into our culture." This September, he's kicking off his biggest tour yet, and he describes his packing process as "last-minute" — throwing in whatever catches his eye and figuring out the combinations on the day of. Styling for the tour is handled by two stylist friends he's worked with for years, who keep pulling looks that feel "comfortable and cool at the same time."

As for what makes a good pair of jeans, his definition is straightforward: "A wash that connects to your soul, a fit that connects to your legs." No further explanation needed — which is basically a snapshot of his entire approach to style: if it feels right, that's enough.